The present invention relates to an attachment for farm equipment or farm machinery, particularly to harvesting equipment towed by a tractor or similar prime move power-source. The invention comprises a disc or plate-like member constructed and arranged for attachment to the wheels of crop-harvesting farm equipment, such as a corn-picker or chopper, or the like.
It is intended primarily for use on equipment operating on very loose or wet soil, wherein the traction between the surface of the earth and the wheels of the equipment is less than desirable and produces undesirable operation of the harvesting equipment.
More specifically, it is intended for attachment to the wheels of harvesting equipment, so as to permit such wheels and machinery to "track" properly behind the prime mover or tractor, or power source.
Devices of a similar nature have been suggested in the past and are referred particularly to in Gilkerson U.S. Pat. No. 2,188,221 dated Jan. 23, 1940, as well as Bahensky U.S. Pat. No. 2,179,170 patented Nov. 7, 1939.
Gilkerson's device was designed especially for use on the front wheel of tractors or prime movers. However, in those early years very few tractors had wheel brakes to aid in turning in loose ground, particularly tractors with narrow front wheels operating on hilly fields. They were hard to turn without sliding laterally, and thus the Gilkerson device was primarily a steering-aid for the prime mover, not a tracking-aid for a piece of equipment being towed behind the tractor.
Bahensky's device was designed for rear tractor wheels, especially in irrigated corn fields which had especially high ridges. It was necessary for the tractor to follow the ridges because the corn harvesting equipment towed behind the tractor was essentially a corn binder which had no adjustable pull, as do the corn choppers or the harvesters of today's equipment. Therefore, Bahensky produced a device to keep the tractor on the ridges of the cut rows, and by so doing it would keep the binder on the row that was being cut, not the uncut rows which were at the side of the tractor. In those days the tractors were light in weight, and it was hard to keep them on the ridges, and thus Bahensky's patent was designed to assist in this operation of the tractor, not of the equipment being towed behind.
At the time of the Gilkerson and Bahensky inventions, off-set corn choppers or corn pickers had not yet been invented, and thus there was no need for the present invention.
Additionally, the devices used on farms at present, not only towed in an off-set manner behind the tractor, but behind the picker or chopper a trailing wagon is pulled, into which the harvested corn is tossed. As this wagon gets more fully loaded, it becomes heavier, and the drawing pull on the tow bar behind the chopper increases the strain on the off-set tow bar, creating even a stronger force to drag the wheels of the harvesting machine into the ruts created by the tractor itself.